He understands there is no quick fix. And no walking away from something we helped completely fuck up.

He is willing to do this difficult thing. Or at least try.

+++++++++++++++

I think it's too late, though. I think we are too far down the extremist partisan shithole (on both sides of the isle) to recover any decent sense of national self, any healthy national identity.

Too far gone to understand when some sacrifice is necessary, some commitments need to be fulfilled, and there are places and situations in this world that cannot be taken back to Customer Service for a refund like a pair of jeans that makes our ass look big.

This is a crying shame as far as I'm concerned: In spite of one year of his best effort to stop a worldwide financial collapse, extract us from Iraq, and now finish the job - yes I said it - by giving the country we've been tearing apart for 8 years JUST two years of real effort towards some kind of stability, some kind of future without becoming a total narco state, or another Somalia, that he is reviled like the men that started this fucked, fucking adventure.

It's disgusting.

Let's get something straight:

I hate this war. I hate these fucking wars with the same fury I that hated the war in VietNam.

I know what the price is for these kinds of adventures. But I know the prices others will pay if we just walk away, too.

I hate this war but I cannot advocate leaving these people to their own devices after COMPLETELY destroying their 9th century infrastructure.

And that is the ONLY reason I back the President in this. We have to leave them something other than weapons and the greatest narcotics business in the world.

+++++++

If we turn our backs on what we allowed to fester in place for 8 years, if we walk away without at least TRYING to set right what the NEOCONS 'achieved', then there is little hope for us, I think.

It means that we have no more honor, we have no business in the affairs of the world of any import. That our word is no fucking good.

I would hope that at this late date we are better than that, that some things are worth the debt, the effort, the blood. That maybe we CAN leave things better than the NEOCONS left them when they left town in the middle of the night like the sociopathic carpetbaggers they are.

We, as Democrats, are supposed to be different than that.

++++++++++++++

This latest gambit will likely fail. Afghanistan is by all available evidence the Sword of Damocles wrapped in a Gordian knot.

We as a country are too broke, and as a people are unwilling to serve any interest but our own, most of the time.

But we do have to TRY to set this right. We have to.

Or the sacrifice of every soldier who died is a waste, every civilian in Afghanistan who believed in us has to become an acceptable casualty when we are gone.

And that we are not to be trusted to serve any interest but our own capricious adventures, Our own immediate self interest.

Even at this late date I cannot believe that is we have degenerated that far.

And if we have, we are just like the fucking NEOCONS:

We'll fuck your shit up and then leave town. Just like they did with the economy, New Orleans, both Iraq and Afghanistan.

How come they didn't include rendition and torture as OK thingys, after all, the British Ter'rists were an occupying force in this country and THEIR penalty for doing things like forming your own congress was punishable by death.....

The founders knew that and still guaranteed 10 essential rights for all citizens, british sympathisers or not.

Berlin - A computer virus which has already hit defence computers in Britain and France has spread to German military systems, the Defence Ministry in Berlin said Saturday. The Conficker computer worm has exasperated computer users right around the globe in recent weeks, but security-conscious military users had been thought to be better prepared to repel it. The spokesman said several German armed forces sites had to be disconnected from the military network after hundreds of computers were taken over by Conficker. However, no other disruptions were reported. He said army computer recovery specialists and a private company were ridding the computers of the virus. France suffered a military outage from the worm in mid-January. Britain's Defence Ministry has also admitted problems with it. Microsoft has posted a reward of 250,000 dollars for the capture of the person who spread the virus, which takes over Windows operating systems, attempts to crack passwords and downloads malware from the internet.

As way of expertise on the subject, I give you a couple photos of the very tower where I spent my tour in Vietnam. It is almost 40 feet tall.

Oswald was 20 0r 30 feet above that. The distance through the scope of the places where Kennedy was actually hit were extremely difficult shots, particularly on a moving target. And after the first shot, an accelerating target.

Even when the cancer was eating George alive he displayed the same courage and grace he showed while flying into some of the worst shitholes in all of Vietnam. Unarmed.

Agent Orange poisoning. It was fast and terrible. He never complained, never used his military service to gain favor or attention.

***

The service was sad and moving and beautiful.

Because of the number of funerals for older vets, funerals are not held at the gravesites in the Tahoma cemetary-- too many folks walking all over the immaculate lawns.

George was actually interred last week, the service was held yesterday in a small open sided shelter a few dozen yards from the actual grave.

I have never been in a military cemetery that big before - it's massive - a hundred and fifty acres - we needed a map to find the little shelter where the service was held.

Large groves of trees divide the twenty thousand headstones into what seems like a dozen smaller, more intimate graveyards....it looked like a small town country cemetery once we got out of the car.

The ceremony was slow, professional, loving. A short eulogy, a 21 gun salute shattering the silence, the flag folded into an impossibly tight triangle, three expended shells tucked deep into the folds.

It was presented to his mother by an officer on bended knee; all of it preformed with the reverence and solemn respect and that George earned every time he flew for the wounded. A promise kept.

The bugler played "taps" to end the service. The event went from private and personal into archetype......

And I know it sounds stupid or soft or trite, but it broke my heart. And healed it at the same instant.

I stood for my brother in arms, then. Grateful for knowing him, honored by his friendship.

It rained the whole time we were there. A soft, steady, windless rain that seemed the only perfect weather for what we were doing.

***

This morning I read about the latest attack on Obama by the McCain camp.

McCain is a fucking coward and a traitor to men like George.

He is not worthy of burial in the same hallowed ground where so many honorable men and women rest.

"Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world's most populous country is hogging all the world's resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps.

But, at least with transportation fuel, you'd be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California's 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China's! (Or Russia's. Or India's. Or Brazil's. Or Germany's.)"

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